View the book

(~280 pg)Read Online
(15.5 M)PDF
(~280 pg)EPUB
(~280 pg)Kindle
(~280 pg)Daisy
(513.5 K)Full Text
(14.4 M)DjVu

All Files: HTTP

Resources

Bookmark

THE SHELTERING DESERT (1958)

Author: HENNO MARTIN
Publisher: THOMAS NELSON & SONS
Language: English
Call number: 7109
Book contributor: Universal Digital Library
Collection: universallibrary

Write a review
Downloaded 1,054 times Reviews
Average Rating:

Reviewer: stbalbach - - June 17, 2010
Subject: The Sheltering Desert

The Sheltering Desert (1957) is a fantastic African travel/adventure book, I loved every aspect of it. Two German scientists escape into the Namib Desert to avoid incarceration by the British at the start of World War II. They survive like Robinson Crusoe for 2.5 years in a landscape of harsh beauty and danger. Everything they need they learn how to make from scratch. Like Bushmen they revert to a primitive but naturally ideal state as each day is a struggle for water, food, shelter and safety from other predators. At night, from the safety of a cave eating the days kill, they philosophize on big questions such as the merits of civilization versus hunter gatherers, the nature of evolution, all the while listening to the progress of WWII on a radio. They become highly attuned to the thoughts, emotions and habits of animals around them. For the reader armed with a map of Namibia, it's a total immersion into a place where some of the oldest humans have existed, the next best thing to going there in person, or returning in spirit. For some reason the book is well known in Namibia, most modern travel guide books mention it, but it's completely unknown outside that context. I would put it nearly on-par with contemporary classics like Kon-Tiki and Seven Years in Tibet as a work of outdoor literature, for its mix of adventure, danger, natural description and exotic locale.

The 1958 English translation appears to be in the public domain, there is no copyright renewal registration for it. Internet Archive has a copy of The Sheltering Desert online free in various formats. A German publisher has it in print, and there are some (rather exspensive) used copies on the market. There was also a film version made in 1992, but does not appear to have made it to VHS/DVD (if you have a copy, pls contact me!)

[STB | 062010| 80]

Selected metadata

Identifier:	shelteringdesert007109mbp
Mediatype:	texts
Pagelayout:	FirstPageRight
Imagecount:	280
Copyrightowner:	UNION DEUTSCHE VERLAGSGESELLSCHAFT
Scanningcenter:	RMSC-IIITH
Digitalpublicationdate:	2003-12-13 00:00:00
Barcode:	109549
Numberedpages:	236
Totalpages:	236
Identifier-access:	http://www.archive.org/details/shelteringdesert007109mbp
Identifier-ark:	ark:/13960/t5m902v97